Tuesday, May 23, 2017

Test of Honor Samurai

Clan Madu Uppu.

A little while back my friend Marky introduced me to Warlord Games' new samurai skirmish game called "Test of Honor". It was a fun little game and requires less than 20 models per side, so I was game to paint a force. I dug into my backlog and found several boxes of Wargames Factory's plastic samurai kit. I had picked them up on the cheap when Wargames Factory was going out business and had somehow gotten it in my head that I was going to play a samurai mass battle game.

The samurai leader of the warband. I wanted a color to contrast withthe greens of the rest of the group.

I had a hard time deciding on a color scheme. In the end I opted for creating my own and letting history be damned.

Unfortunately the kits are super frustrating in my opinion. The standard infantry model is 9 pieces and the parts are very fine and brittle. If I were to paint another force for the game, I'd probably look at picking up some metal castings from a company like the Perry Brothers. I ended up giving away most the models that I'd bought - mostly because I was having so little fun assembling the models for the resulting final product.

The shooting contingent. Guns are slow in the game, but they are cool, so I included them.

The samurai's personal standard bearer bolster's the courage of his troops.

As a game. I liked the simplicity of Test of Honor's rules. It plays quickly and is a lot of fun. The only downside in my opinion is that as a game its a little token and card heavy. Propriety dice don't help too much either. But again, if a game requires under 20 models to play you can probably get me to paint up a force.